


your lover's lover's alibi

by cleardishwashers



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018), Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: First Meetings, High School, House Party, M/M, theyre GAY and thats that on that!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 18:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/cleardishwashers
Summary: how rusty and danny meet(i very much had to title this after blondie lyrics)(this used to be called a real tough cookie and then after talking w paperdeviance i realized that hit me with your best shot was sung by pat benatar not blondie. in conclusion i am a dumbass)





	your lover's lover's alibi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShadyDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadyDragon/gifts), [suibian_distance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suibian_distance/gifts).

Danny steps outside for a second, the (illegal) drink in one hand sloshing around and the (just barely legal) cigarette in the other dropping ash over the sidewalk. The thumping bass playing in the house is audible even out in the chilly October air, and it’s not doing anything for Danny’s budding headache. He sips his drink, open carry and underage drinking laws be damned, and he does a mental tally of how many personal items he’s swindled from idiot football players (hint: the answer is seventeen, comprising of wallets and licenses and gold chains and cufflinks, because the football team had won the state championship and gone to dinner with the governor and apparently the governor requires cufflinks). He fidgets with the cuffs of his suit jacket and wonders, for the millionth time, why the team had insisted on formalwear for the afterparty, too. He checks his watch— it’s almost midnight, which means the time period for the bet is coming to an end, which means that Debbie will be finding her way out here soon.

He waits five minutes, and then she comes out of the house, her hair falling down around her shoulders. He feels a twinge of regret for not keeping a better eye on her, because the punch is spiked to an almost offensive level and he remembers her puking up the better part of a pint of vodka last summer, but she looks perfectly fine. Happy, even. Which can only mean— “Seventeen, brother dearest,” she says, grinning at him. “And what meager amount did you manage to get?”

“Are you shitting me?” he asks her, raising his eyebrows. The headache grows behind his eyes, like a weed that he just can’t seem to pull out. “It’s a tie.”

Debbie lets out an incredulous laugh. “No way.”

“Count, if you want.”

Debbie snorts. “I’ll take your word for it, because I’m still gonna kick your  _ ass.” _

“What do you suggest?” he asks, already forming six different plans in his head.

“Uh… let’s see.” She looks around the backyard of the house, out at the guitar-strummers and the potheads and the douches lounging in the pool even though it’s forty degrees. “Whoever steals three things and gets back to the front door first wins.”

“Deal,” Danny says, already walking down the steps into the backyard proper.

The first two are easy— he swipes a watch from one asshole and an ostentatious signet ring from another, and then his eyes land on a blond kid who practically swims in his suit, playing a game of poker near a strip of trees. Danny watches as Blondie pulls the entire pot to himself, grinning a lazy smile, and then he decides that this is his third mark.

He walks over to the poker game and sits down to the left of Blondie, a small part of him wincing at the mud that’s undoubtedly staining his pants. “Deal me in?” he asks, grinning.

Blondie grins right back and nods as he slides cards off the top of the deck. It’s the easiest thing in the world to unclip the cufflinks from his suit, and it’s even easier to win the pot— not big, but fifty bucks is enough to buy something nice. He leaves the game, and when he gets to the front door, his sister is nowhere to be seen. He smiles again.

And then Blondie materializes at his shoulder, that same lazy smile adorning his face, except this time it has an undercurrent of something sharper contained within. “Hey,” Blondie says. “You know, you’re pretty good at poker.”

“I can take care of myself,” Danny says.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Blondie replies, and then he pulls Danny’s wallet out of his oversized suit pocket. Danny’s eyebrows raise just the slightest bit, and Blondie’s smirk widens. “Can I have my cufflinks back?”

He could deny it, but the fact that Blondie has cottoned on so quickly tells him that playing dumb won’t work. He could give the cufflinks back, but then Debbie would mock him for the rest of time. He could make up some half-assed lie, but something in him says that there’s no way Blondie would believe him. “I need to win a bet,” Danny says, the explanation jumping out of his mouth faster than he can think.

“You need to win a bet,” Blondie says, his quiet voice filled with amusement. “And what bet would this be?”

“Why do you need to know?” Danny counters easily, even though Blondie’s smile is kind of disarming, especially in the low light. “I’d think since we’ve each stolen something from each other, no further explanations would be necessary.”

“Not  _ necessary,” _ Blondie says agreeably, “but I’m interested in what kind of bet someone like  _ you,” _ and then his eyes sweep up and down Danny’s body in a way that makes his chest heat up and his cheeks flush, “would make involving  _ my _ cufflinks.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Danny says, “I had a bet with my sister to see who could lift more shit.”

“And yet you didn’t notice me taking your wallet,” Blondie replies, still sounding amused. “Then again, nobody here did, but are you sure you’re that great of a thief?”

“Well, I noticed that you took my watch,” Danny says. Blondie’s eyebrows raise almost imperceptibly, and then his face breaks out into a real grin. “By the way, I feel like a wallet with close to two hundred in cash is worth more than a shit pair of ten-dollar cufflinks.”

Blondie actually laughs, a short noise that sounds like it left his lungs against his will. “So you’re a rich kid, then.”

“Nope,” Danny replies, popping the ‘p,’ “just really good at poker.”

“Sure,” Blondie says, neither condescending nor conciliatory.

“I’ve given you my background— you wanna tell me yours? Why’re you stealing wallets, if not to win a bet with your sister?”

“I just really wanted some KFC,” Blondie says.

“You wanted— given the status of most everyone here, you wanted thousands of dollars’ worth of KFC?”

“No, I just wanted one of those huge buckets,” Blondie says. “Stealing thousands of dollars from assholes was just a huge perk.”

“Am I an asshole, then?”

“Well, you  _ did _ steal my cufflinks.”

“That’s fair.”

“You know, since you’re such an upstanding citizen,” Blondie says, and Danny can just barely catch the faint traces of sarcasm in his voice, “I’ll make you a deal.”

“And what would that be?”

“You can keep my cufflinks and win your bet.”

“But?”

“You gotta buy me the biggest fucking tub of chicken that KFC has.”

Danny raises his eyebrows. “And what happens if I say no?”

“Well, you’d be depriving yourself of my company,” Blondie says, like it’s obvious, completely glossing over what else he could do if Danny turned down the offer.

“That’s a hard bargain you drive there,” Danny says. “I accept.”

“Good,” Blondie says. “By the way, your sister got here five minutes before you. I’ll still take the KFC, though.”

Danny looks out the front door, and Debbie waves at him from where she’s sitting on the lawn, holding up three different watches. He turns back to Blondie. “I think this could qualify as blackmail.”

“I’d qualify it as getting to know each other,” Blondie says, smiling that disarming smile once more.

“Over ‘the biggest fucking tub of chicken that KFC has,’ of course.”

“Of course.”

Danny stares at him for a moment, Blondie’s blue-green eyes boring straight back into his, and then he grins. “You got me there, Blondie. I’m Danny, by the way.”

“I mean, you  _ could _ call me Blondie, but my real name is Rusty.”

Danny’s cheeks heat a little at his quasi-Freudian slip, and he forges past it. “Nice to meet you, Rusty. Can I get my wallet back now?”

**Author's Note:**

> and now you see why i had to title it as i did. kudos/comments always appreciated! my tumblr is @cleardishwashers, PLEASE scream at me about o11/o8


End file.
